Lecture 5 Notes (along with Powerpoint Notes)

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School

University of Toronto Scarborough

Department

Sociology

Course

SOCA02H3

Professor

Malcolm Mac Kinnon

Semester

Winter

Description

LECTURE 5EducationMass Education An OverviewEducation system has displaced organized religion as main purveyor of formal knowledgeEducation system also is second in importance only to the family as agent of socializationUniversal mass education is recent phenomenon and is limited to relatively wealthy countriesAround 1900 Canada and the United States were the first countries in history to approach universal educational participation by young people Societies that today are highly advanced in terms of economy and technology such as Japan Italy and England lagged far behindFor most of history families were chiefly responsible for socializing the young and training them to perform adult rolesReligion in traditional society was the main source of knowledgeParents complain that education is in fact trying to replace parents and taking the place of primary socialization coparentsLiteracy is the ability to read at rather a primitive level education provides uniform socialization education has become rationalized and centralized History of Mass Education300 yrs ago Most were illiterate100 yrs ago Majority never attended school1950 Only 10 of worlds countries had system of compulsory mass educationToday More than half in developing countries are illiterate while in Canada education is a way of life Uniform SocializationCreating systems of education that had sufficient resources to include all children was social change of breathtaking scopeReligious training was never widely available and tended to set people apart from surrounding communityReplacing these forms of instruction with centralized and rationalized system created strong pressures toward uniformity and standardizationDiversity among families regions and religious traditions gradually gave way to homogenized indoctrination into common cultureChief concerns of the sociology of religion is what is taught at school how changes in the economy relate to changes in education